


After

by slow-smiles (the_irish_mayhem)



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluff, Post-Finale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-25
Updated: 2015-06-25
Packaged: 2018-04-06 01:49:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4203375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_irish_mayhem/pseuds/slow-smiles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“It should’ve been me,” she confided in barely a whisper.</i>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Post-Operation Mongoose.</p>
            </blockquote>





	After

**Author's Note:**

> A little OQ niblet. Takes place post-S4 finale.

Regina has been many things in her lifetime--a queen, a murderer, a mother, a lover, and most recently a friend--but there is one thing she generally isn’t.

Regretful. Full of guilt.

 _She_  should’ve taken the dagger. She had experience with magic, with  _dark_  magic, she was on a path to a better place. She should’ve taken the dagger.

(Regina hated that she wanted to make the gutted look on Snow’s and David’s faces go away. Hated that the anguish on Hook’s wouldn’t be assuaged by a single thing she could do. She hated feeling powerless, and she hated that she was vulnerable now. Exposed. Caring does that to a person.)

Robin sensed her mood immediately after everyone left the road shell-shocked and wayward. Emma was gone. No one had had the willpower to call her with the dagger. (No one wanted to see the Savior go dark. God, she could laugh at the irony. Gold got what he wanted after all. Everything that she’d tried to stop--)

“You’ve got that look,” Robin said quietly, mindful of their two boys walking ahead of them, making the up the path to Regina’s front door.

Henry was as broken as the rest of them. Even though he hadn’t been there to see it (she will be forever grateful for that), it change the fact that his birth mother was gone. That his birth mother was now...

Roland didn’t know Emma that well, but she could tell he sensed the tension and hurt in the air by the way he clung to Henry’s hand, curled into his side. The action made her heart warm, if only slightly.

“It should’ve been me,” she confided in barely a whisper. Before Robin could respond, they were at the door, and Regina asked Henry to make sure Roland was settled in. Her son, her beautiful, wonderful son, nodded slowly. He was battling with tears, she could tell, but he was trying to stay strong for Roland, for her. Once their sons were safely inside and away, Regina said it again, louder, “Robin, it should’ve been me.”

His eyes fluttered closed. “Please don’t say that.” They opened again. “Please don’t say that,” he said again, voice soft with hurt.

“Emma barely understands her magic as it is, at least if I had taken it, I might’ve been able to control it or...” she trailed off.

“Then it would’ve been your name written across that blade, lost somewhere in the realms,” he said unnecessarily. He met her gaze with one of those intense stares of his, and she couldn’t look away. “Regina, I can’t lose you. Not again. Not after Marian and Zelena--” He cut himself off with a heavy breath to stabilize his shaking voice. “You know what the Sorcerer said. The darkness was tethered to a person through the dagger so it wouldn’t destroy the realms. It would’ve destroyed you and then the rest of the lands had Emma not intervened,” he reasoned.

“I still should’ve taken it,” she said after a moment of silence.

“It’s not your job to destroy yourself for the sake of others.”

“It’s what Emma did.”

“It shouldn’t be her job either. But she made a choice, and she chose to save everyone. To save you,” he said, stepping forward to cup her cheek. She leaned into the contact, savoring the warmth of his hand against her skin. “I will forever be in her debt for bringing you back to me.”

Regina clenched her fists, and closed her eyes. “I should’ve been able to do something. I hate being weak.”

The tender look in his eye nearly broke her. “Regina, you are not weak. It was an impossible choice, and impossible situation.”

She felt heat in her face, and she was determined to not cry. She wouldn’t. “She’s my friend and I failed her.” Her voice shook traitorously, but no tears fell. Robin took her in his arms anyway.

“You haven’t failed her. Not by a long shot,” he assured, his hand stroking gently over her hair. “We have the dagger. We have the information that the Apprentice gave us. We’ll find a way to save her.” He pulled away, and Regina was horrified to find a tear slipping down her cheek. He wiped it away before she could beat him to it. “Together.”

She wasn’t fixed. Not by a long shot. Her heart was breaking as surely as Robin sought to heal it. But just like watching Henry and Roland tonight, her heart warmed that much more as Robin favored her with a tender kiss to her forehead.

“Together,” she repeated.

Maybe that would be enough.


End file.
